Audubon North Carolina’s Bird-Friendly Native Plants of the Year program is working to create more availability of native plants that specifically benefit birds, but also our environment and our local economy. We’re partnering with local plant nurseries and growers to offer more bird-friendly native plants to add to your garden to help our birds with food and shelter as their natural habitats continue to disappear.

Bird-Friendly Native Plants of the Year is all about LOCAL! Local plants, local businesses and local gardens. By supporting local growers in North Carolina, you are helping to lay down roots to buy and plant more bird-friendly native plants.

Bird-Friendly Native Plants of the Year

We’ve worked with growers to select our Bird-Friendly Native Plants of the Year. We’ve purposely picked just a handful of bird-friendly native plants so you can add new plants to your collection each year, while growers prepare plants for the following year. This is an add-as-you-go program where you can buy new species of native plants to benefit birds each year.

Why Bird-Friendly Native Plants?
We want to see a resurgence of native plants that specifically benefit birds as well as benefitting our environment and our local economy. It’s simple, bird-friendly native plants are a winning choice for gardeners because they are:

Easy – Bird-friendly native plants are easy to grow in North Carolina’s climate. This means less maintenance and plant care once they are established in your garden.

Perform – Since these plants are native to North Carolina, after the first year these selections often grow with little coddling. Plant it and forget it.

Beautiful – Native plants are gorgeous. If you haven’t seen an American Beautyberry with fruit or a Coral Honeysuckle in bloom, we suggest you take a moment and do an image search. These bird-friendly native plants are great additions to your garden over time. We’re not recommending a total plant makeover, but just adding a few of these plants to your yard can make a world of difference for birds.

Food for Birds – You will be helping birds raise their chicks, and who isn’t happy about that? Birds need native plants to feed their chicks and to stay fed all winter. In the spring, birds pick off caterpillars to feed their babies. In the fall, the seeds and fruits from bird-friendly native plants are excellent sources of energy for the winter.

Available – We are currently working with North Carolina plant growers and retailers to grow a select list of native plants, our “Bird-Friendly Native Plants of the Year.” This will make it easier to find bird-friendly native plants at participating nurseries. By planting bird-friendly native plants you will help show growers that there is demand, allowing them to grow and provide more varieties year after year.

What Can YOU Do?
We want more bird-friendly native plants in more yards! It’s really that simple.

Print out the Bird-Friendly Native Plants of the Year list,and visit participating retailers and ask for the plants on the list. Local nurseries are treasure troves of information to help you succeed in your planting adventures.

Sign-up to get a special Bird-Friendly Native Plants of the Year updates twice a year with tips on how to care for native plants plus a preview of the new list.

Funding for this project was provided in part through an Urban & Community Forestry Grant from the North Carolina Forest Service, Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, in cooperation with the USDA Forest Service, Southern Region.